The present invention relates to a system and method for booking air travel itineraries on multiple host environments. The system and method provide a flexible approach toward searching for travel itineraries, calculating fares and booking tickets.
In the commercial airline industry tickets are often distributed through Global Distribution Systems (GDS), sometimes also referred to as Computer Reservations Systems (CRS). These are large computerized reservations and ticketing system such as Worldspan, Sabre, Galileo, and others. Until recently air travel itineraries could only be booked through a travel agent with access to a GDS or with the air carrier directly through the air carrier's direct host ticketing environment.
Commerce over the Internet has greatly affected the way in which airline ticketing takes place. Today there are many internet based travel sites through which individuals can search for fares, book itineraries and purchase tickets from their own personal computer, without ever speaking to or visiting a travel agent. However, while these “online travel agencies” provide reservations booking and ticketing services in a somewhat more convenient manner, they still rely on the aging Global Distributions Systems for locating itineraries calculating fares and booking tickets. The cost of searching for flights and booking itineraries on a GDS is extra overhead that must be passed on to the customer in the form of higher ticket prices. Furthermore, when tickets are purchased through a GDS there must still be some interface with the air carrier's internal ticketing environment in order for the carrier to control its flight inventory. Thus, rather than booking itineraries through a GDS a more efficient approach would be to interface directly with the air carrier's internal ticketing environment and book itineraries directly with the carriers.
Recently, an improved mechanism for searching for air travel itineraries has been developed. This improved mechanism involves removing the flight schedule and fare searching functions from the GDS and performing them separately from the reservation booking and ticketing process. By locating itineraries and fares outside the GDS environment it is possible to locate desirable itineraries and fares and then book them directly with the air carrier's host systems, bypassing the GDS altogether.
Implementing such a system, however, raises a number of difficulties. For example, direct supply links may be available for some carriers and not others. Some itineraries may include flight segments on more than one carrier, which would require multiple transactions to different carriers' internal ticketing systems. Furthermore, some categories of travel such as international air travel may only be searchable using GDSs. Thus, any system for allowing direct access to air carriers' host systems must be sufficiently flexible in order to provide access to the largest number of carriers possible, and to selectively switch from processing transactions on air carriers' host environments and GDSs as necessary to meet customers' particular demands. Thus, there is a need for a flexible air travel booking system and method of booking air travel itineraries which provides the ability to book itineraries directly on the air carriers' host environments, as well as the backup ability to book itineraries on GDSs.